Viewing archives for Uncategorized

Old Elizabethan Demis Hasabbis, a world-leading artificial intelligence expert, is now using AI to speed up the development of new drugs which may help in the battle against Alzheimer’s disease, he told Kirsty Young when he appeared on the BBC’s Desert Island Discs.

His company, DeepMind, was bought by Google for a reported £400m in 2014 – and Demis said his motivation in selling was to enable the business to step up its work.

“For me, it was nothing to do with the money – in fact, our investors mostly didn’t want to sell even though it was a lot of money – it’s because I was convinced that by joining forces with Google, we could accelerate the success of the mission.” Demis explained that he was able to employ more expert researchers, thanks to Google’s injection of cash.

In March 2016, DeepMind hit the headlines when its programme, AlphaGo, beat a world champion player of the game, Go. DeepMind, of which he is CEO, is now using variants of those algorithms in its medical research into how proteins fold into a 3d structure. The 3d structure determines how the protein is going to act in the body, and faulty folding may be responsible for diseases such as Alzheimer’s. “If you could take an amino acid sequence and just tell straightaway how the 3d structure is going to look just from that, then you would accelerate drug design by five or ten years.”

Demis said the “most exciting breakthrough” in which DeepMind is currently involved is bringing together two two types of AI: deep learning, which uses neural networks to mimic what the brain does, and reinforcement learning, which is about using a model of the world to make decisions. “These two systems together, which is our big innovation, gives you in some sense the rudimentary beginnings of a full intelligence.”

Demis was at QE from 1988–1990. He had a period of home schooling, and paid tribute to his “bohemian” parents, from whom he learned that “you don’t have to be constricted by social norms”. During these early years, Demis played chess and was at one time the world’s second highest-ranked player of his age, but says he had an epiphany at a large chess tournament in Liechtenstein when he realised that all the brainpower in evidence there could be put to better use for the benefit of humanity.

He took his A-levels aged 16 at Christ’s College in Finchley and won a place at Cambridge, but since he was too young to take it up, he began his initial career in computer gaming by working for the British company, Bullfrog Productions, after winning a competition which had a job there as its prize. Arriving the day after his examinations, he was too young to be legally employed, so was paid in cash. He was the lead programmer and co-designer of the highly successful Theme Park game.

When he eventually went to Cambridge, where he took a double first in the Computer Science Tripos at Queens’ College, he partied hard and had “an amazing three years”. He went on to take a PhD in Cognitive Neuroscience where he deliberately chose to study topics where AI had failed so far: memory and imagination.

Demis, who celebrated his fortieth birthday in July 2016, fell in love with computing from an early age, buying a Spectrum ZX with his chess winnings. “I have always felt…that computers can be this kind of magical device that can extend the power of the mind – I think AI is the end point of that.”

Demis, who is himself a father and is married to a scientist involved in Alzheimer’s research, impressed Kirsty Young with his warmth, openness, thoughtfulness and lack of condescension, so she asked him if he had any advice for parents of very clever children. He replied: “I think what I would do is encourage them to explore heavily when they are young and really get a wide range of experiences, so encourage deepness and expertise in things, but not at the expense of everything else. Life is so rich; you should partake in all of it. I think the kind of skills I would teach children today are the ability to learn, rather than a specific thing that you are learning. One of the first things you should learn about…is about yourself; how do you work best, what do you want, what are your dreams, what are you excited about?

“It’s important to be very broad in your upbringing so that you are used to understanding different points of view…and learning how to deal with that sort of disagreement in a constructive way.”

The rules of Desert Island Discs allow interviewees to pick one book (besides the Bible and works of Shakespeare) and one luxury item. Demis choose Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings – “it’s such a beautiful world he created” – and a solar-powered chess computer.

As usual for the programme, he chose eight pieces of music, naming as his favourite, Vangelis’ Tears in Rain, which was part of the soundtrack to the film, Blade Runner. “I could mull over those lines, I think – they are beautiful poetry – for a very long time.”

The other music was: Watermark, by Nicky Ryan, Roma Shane Ryan and Eith Ni-Bhraonain; Justified and Ancient, by Tammy Wynette with The KLF; The Narcotic Suite; Skylined, by The Prodigy; The Garden is Becoming a Robe Room, by the modern classical composer, Michael Nyman; Who Wants to Live Forever, by Queen; Motherboard, by Daft Punk, and First Step by Hans Zimmer.

Almost all QE boys taking part in this year’s Junior Maths Challenge won certificates, placing them among the top 40% entrants nationally.

A total of 292 QE Year 7 and 8 pupils entered the UK Mathematics Trust’s competition, and 279 of them, or 96%, won certificates, with 174 awarded gold, 77 silver and 28 bronze. Across the country, the top 40% receive gold, silver and bronze certificates in the ratio 1:2:3, and each school receives a Best in School certificate.

Around 1,200 of the highest scorers nationally are invited to take part in the Junior Mathematical Olympiad. Twenty-eight QE boys have qualified for the Junior Olympiad, with a further 88 reaching the competition’s other follow-on round, the Junior Kangaroo.

QE’s Best in School Award went to Andy Kwak (pictured above left), of Year 8, with a score of 130 out of 135. “I’m really pleased, but I think I will have to work a lot harder to do well in the Olympiad,” he said.

The Best in Year 7 title was awarded jointly to Bhunit Santhiramoulesan and Mukund Soni, who both scored 127.

Assistant Head of Mathematics Wendy Fung said: “We are delighted with how well the boys have done and look forward to the results of the Olympiad and Kangaroo.”

Old Elizabethan William Forrester has been presented with his Duke of Edinburgh Gold Award at Buckingham Palace.

During the ceremony, William (OE 2009–2016) took the opportunity to share his experiences of fulfilling the demanding requirements of the award with the Earl of Wessex, who is a trustee of the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award scheme. The presenter at the palace was British Army Officer David Love, a Staff Officer with the Royal Military Police and an expedition co-ordinator for both the military and for the D of E scheme.

To achieve gold, William was required to volunteer for 12 months, learn a skill over six months and participate in a fitness activity for 12 months, as well as taking part in a week-long residential course and planning and undertaking an expedition in wild country.

For fitness, William turned to his longstanding passion for Ju-Jitsu – in 2013, he was named the U16 British Champion in both Grappling and Takedown in the sport’s Ishin Ryu (One Heart/Mind School). He fulfilled the volunteering requirement by teaching Ju-Jitsu to 4-11 year-olds. For the six-month skill requirement, he concentrated on the piano.

He completed the residential week on the Isle of Arran, where the focus was on conservation work. After a four-day practice expedition in the Peak District, he and his fellow award candidates headed off to the Brecon Beacons, where they had to battle through horrendous weather: it was very cold and, in addition, it rained non-stop for four days, which made both navigation and communicating with team mates almost impossible.

Headmaster Neil Enright said: “My congratulations go to William on receiving the Gold Award: I know that it was a proud day both for him and his parents. He certainly made his mark as a pupil at the School and this award reflects his characteristic determination, resilience and commitment in pursuit of a goal.”

William is now reading for a Master’s degree in Aerospace Engineering at Sheffield.

His interest in engineering took wing while he was at QE. In Year 9, William and a classmate, Ollie Chick, set up an engineering club for his year. In Year 12, he spent three days at a summer school on aerospace engineering organised by the educational charity, The Smallpeice Trust.

Also during his time in the Sixth Form, he was part of an award-winning team of four formed under the Engineering Development Scheme’s Engineering Education Scheme. The team’s solution to the problem of dust particle inhalation on construction sites – a water-fed broom – won the South East Regional Final of the Constructing Excellence 2015 competition. They then progressed to the national finals, where they were the only school team and were up against professionals. As part of the national final requirements, the QE pupils gave very well received presentations to two meetings of the Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH), the world’s largest occupational health & safety organisation. Their invention even attracted the attention of household products company, Vileda, which wanted to create a prototype product.

William maintains close links with the School and is currently an invigilator at QE during his university vacations. His father, Peter, accompanied William to Buckingham Palace, and his mother, Karen, met them both for lunch after the ceremony. Mr and Mrs Forrester have been longtime stalwarts of the Friends of Queen Elizabeth’s.

Old Elizabethan George Mpanga – aka George the Poet – has released a powerful video of him reading a poem on hate crime to coincide with the anniversary of the murder of MP Jo Cox.

It is now a year since the 41-year-old MP was shot and stabbed by a far-right extremist in her West Yorkshire constituency of Batley and Spen. More recently, police have reported that hate crimes are on the increase following terrorist attacks in London and Manchester. This week, a worshipper at the Muslim Welfare House mosque in Finsbury Park died after a man drove a van into a crowd outside.

George (OE 2002–2009) released the two-minute video in collaboration with the Equality and Human Rights Commission to encourage people to report hate crimes. He has achieved growing fame for his spoken-word work, recently performing in front of the Queen at the Commonwealth Day Service in Westminster Abbey.

Headmaster Neil Enright said: “George’s poem is a timely reminder of the need for vigilance against all forms of hatred.

“I trust his example will inspire boys here at the School to stand up for causes greater than themselves in line with our mission statement, which urges boys to achieve fulfilment by ‘seeking to make a contribution to society rather than pursuing only personal gain’.”

The poem addresses issues such as inaction in the face of hatred and misinformation about those who are the victims of hate crimes. It begins with the following lines, which are reprised later in the poem:

The defining characteristic of a hate crime is not actually hate.

It’s prejudice.

‘We use the word the word ‘hate’ to define it

Because the prejudice is born of a hateful climate.’

Thousands of events have been taking place around the country to celebrate Jo Cox’s life. Her husband, Brendan Cox, who was behind the idea of the anniversary events, has urged the country to unite against hatred.

George’s poem ends with the words “You can’t fight violence with silence”, before cutting to the address for the web page of the Equality and Human Rights Commission at which people can report hate crime – equalityhumanrights.com/hatecrime.

David Isaac, chair of the commission, told the Independent: “We will not go back to a ‘them and us’ culture where distrust and hate exist, and the best way to help end prejudice is by talking to each other and understanding our various communities.

“The Commission is calling for a zero-tolerance approach to hostility and hatred, and I would urge anyone who experiences or witnesses hate crime to report it.”

George’s poem has been reported by a number of news organisations. He is thus the second Old Elizabethan poet to make headlines this month: on General Election day, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn published a poem commissioned by his party from Anthony Anaxagorou (OE 1994–1999).

Forty-five QE boys gained some sobering insights into war on a History department trip to the French and Belgian battlefields of World War I.

The boys, all from Year 9, visited locations including trenches around Ypres and the sites of the battles of the Somme and Passchendaele. They explored original dugouts, as well as some of the support tunnels that ran towards the front line during the Battle of the Somme.

History teacher Matt Dunston said: “The pupils were taken aback by just how close the two sets of trenches were to each other. They have been studying the tactics and weapons of World War I and so this experience really highlighted how senseless the slaughter was.”

Pupil George Raynor added: “I couldn’t believe how grim the conditions were in the trenches and how dangerous it would have been to have lived in them for weeks at a time,” while Samir Shah said: “When you learn about something in a war or a battle in a lesson, it sounds really cool and exciting, but to see the real places where people fought and died was totally different.”

During the visit, the boys saw several cemeteries and memorials, including the Menin Gate, which bears the names of Old Elizabethans who fell at Ypres. 2017 is the 100th anniversary of a number of World War I events, including the Battle of Passchendaele: commemorative ceremonies were taking place while the boys were there.

The last day of the trip was dedicated to World War II. The boys visited two rocket production and launch sites which the Nazis used to bomb London. “They were shocked at the size of the sites and at how industrialised warfare was by 1945,” said Mr Dunston.

Pupil Chen Liu said: “The World War II rocket factories were just awesome. I hadn’t really thought about the scale of it all before.”

Newly qualified doctor Joseph Masters is in Brazil as part of an EU-funded project conducting research into the Zika virus.

Joseph (OE 2004–2011) recently finished his medical school examinations; his work in Recife, in north-east Brazil, is the final elective placement that he must complete before he graduates.

Recife is at the epicentre of the Zika virus outbreak that hit the headlines in 2016. Joseph is working at Hospital da Resturação, the largest public hospital in the city, with neurologist Dr Lucia Brito.

He explains in his own blog how the virus first grabbed his attention in 2016: “I was captivated by my news feed as I followed the spread of the epidemic. Thousands of mothers, mostly from poor communities and already living challenging lives, suddenly found themselves with the additional burden of having to raise disabled children with limited resources.

“Above all, I wanted be able to do my bit, however small, to help the families affected by this terrible disease. Throughout medical school, I’ve often felt like a bit of a spare part on the wards, conscious of being there mostly there for my own learning, with limited opportunity to really make a difference to patient care. However, the Zika outbreak presented an opportunity to change this. I felt compelled to move on from being a passive observer and to put my skills and knowledge into action.

“I wanted to experience the excitement of working at the heart of an outbreak of a new infectious disease: the fast-paced research environment, the sense of urgency and the challenges of tackling such an unknown and unpredictable virus. I was excited by the idea of working in a huge international collaboration and being part of something where, for once, the whole world is working together towards a common goal.”

While the birth defects caused by the virus are well known, the neurological complications it causes in adults have received less publicity. Most commonly, these complications involve a type of paralysis known as Guillain-Barré Syndrome (GBS).

Since Joseph has always been fascinated by the brain – he plans to train to become a neurologist – he was eager to get involved in this aspect of Zika virus research. “Dr Brito was the first doctor to notice that patients with Zika virus were developing GBS as a complication. The connection between Zika and GBS has since been scientifically proven, but there are still many unanswered questions,” he says.

Joseph is working with a group called ZikaPLAN, which is funded by the EU and links 25 research and public health institutions around the world. He has joined researchers from the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (FIOCRUZ), which functions as Brazil’s main public health institution and the research arm of Brazil’s Ministry of Health, and works closely with researchers from the University of Glasgow, University of Liverpool and the International GBS Outcome Study, which is co-ordinated from Erasmus University, Rotterdam.

In the few weeks since he arrived in Brazil, he says he has fallen in love with the “enchanting city” of Recife.

In his final year at QE, Joseph was one of the first-ever recipients of a new prize sponsored by Queen’s College, Oxford, which rewarded the best Extended Project Qualification (EPQ), with one awarded for Sciences and the other for Arts & Humanities. Joseph won the Sciences prize for his EPQ on the quest for a malaria vaccine.

He then amassed an impressive collection of accolades during his medical studies at ‘Barts and The London’ (The London School of Medicine and Dentistry), which is the medical school faculty at Queen Mary University of London.

After their first-term examinations, Joseph and his QE contemporary, Priyank Patel, both secured scholarships awarded according to a combination of merit and financial need.  Joseph’s scholarship was The John Abernethy Scholarship, which commemorates the founder of the Barts Medical College, who lived between 1764 and 1831.

The pair also won merit-based awards from a City of London livery company, The Worshipful Company of Tallow Chandlers, to support their year intercalating (taking time away from their medical degrees to pursue a separate but related research degree).

And Joseph won the Association of British Neurologists' Intercalated Degree Award – which is awarded to just two medical students nationally – and a merit-based award from the Eleanor Rathbone Charitable Trust, again for his year intercalating.

In 2015, he returned to the School to speak at the 50th anniversary Elizabethan Union Dinner Debate alongside Arjun Sajip (OE 2004–2011). The pair successfully opposed the motion This House Believes that prosperity is the best measure of success.

• To read more about Joseph’s work and experiences in Brazil, visit https://joseph-masters.com